Electronic components may be attached to printed circuit boards by a variety of techniques. Traditional techniques include soldering of wire leads extending through holes in the printed circuit board onto a metal foil. As electronic components have become smaller and more integrated, traditional soldering techniques have largely been replaced by wave soldering. Wave soldering allows for large-scale soldering of the electronic components to the printed circuit board (PCB) in a single process which greatly reduces the cost of assembly and improves the quality of the solder connections. However, wave soldering techniques are limited to one side of a given printed circuit board per solder application. To minimize the number of soldering applications, and hence achieve further reductions in assembly costs, reflow soldering techniques are supplanting wave soldering techniques.
Reflow soldering techniques are used with surface mount technology (SMT) electronic components. The surface mounted electronic components are attached to specially prepared printed circuit boards with adhesive and existing solder pads. The entire circuit board is heated to the melting point of the solder present on the existing solder pads which then reflows and bonds with the wire leads extending from the electronic components on both sides of a printed circuit board, in a single soldering operation.
The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.